Youth Media Consumption May Be Hampering Academic Achievement

from a single-parent household and then you add this [media consumption] to it—it’s another indication.”

Past reports have shown a correlation between television viewing and low academic performance. A 20-year study of 678 families released in 2007 by the New York State Psychiatric Institute found that teens who watched three or more hours of television daily had an 82 percent greater chance of not graduating from high school when compared with those who watched less than an hour. However, critics of that study say students who struggle academically may be more inclined to watch TV to avoid the rigors of schoolwork.

The Northwestern study is said to be the first in the United States to examine children’s media use by race. Nearly 1,900 youths participated. The study re-analyzed data from previous Kaiser Family Foundation studies on media consumption, finding that racial differences in children’s media use remained static when accounting for socioeconomic status or whether youths came from single- or two-parent homes.

The results, which appeared to counter concerns about a possible digital divide and may give parents and educators new strategies to meet needs of minority youths, surprised Ellen Wartella, head of Northwestern’s Center on Media and Human Development. She co-authored the study.

“Recreational media use is an enormous part of young people’s lives, more than we ever thought,” she says. “It’s quite clear we have a group of young people who are tethered to their technology.”

The report finds that Black and Latino youths spend one to two more hours daily watching TV and videos, an hour more listening to music, up to 90 minutes more on computers and 90 minutes on cellphones, and 30 to 40 minutes more playing video games than white youths. During the past decade, Black youths have doubled their daily media use, and Latino youths have quadrupled theirs, according to Wartella.

Asian-American youths also consume more media than their white peers. Asians lead all groups in use of mobile devices at 3 hours and 7 minutes daily, compared with 2 hours and 53 minutes for Latinos, 2 hours and 52 minutes for Blacks and just 80 minutes for Whites. Asians also spend 14 more minutes daily watching traditional TV than do White youths and more than an hour daily than Whites watching TV online, via TiVo or on DVD. Nevertheless, Asian-American youths remain high academic achievers, challenging the contention that media consumption hurts student performance.